


Picking Up the Slack

by sistercacao



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post-Canon, Preventers (Gundam Wing), Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-19
Updated: 2007-10-19
Packaged: 2019-03-07 03:16:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13425603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sistercacao/pseuds/sistercacao
Summary: Duo thought Heero wanted nothing to do with him. So why is he waiting for him at his usual bar?





	Picking Up the Slack

“I have a bone to pick with you,” Heero Yuy breathed into my ear. It’s pretty much the last thing I’d ever expect– both the proximity and the idea of Heero using the phrase ‘bone to pick’– so you can forgive me that I jumped about thirty feet into the air and smashed my head into Heero’s jaw so hard he grunted and staggered backward like he’d taken a punch.

I whipped around, already halfway off my barstool and ready to finish the job I’d accidentally started, but then I realized that Heero’s stagger was the fault of more than just my hard head. His eyes were trained on mine, but the focus was soft, wavering. His lip looked like it was split but he was either unaware or didn’t think it warranted much attention. Instead, he just looked pissed and vaguely alarmed. All the signs were very telling.

“Heero, you’re drunk?” I stammered my disbelief.

“Shut the fuck up,” he growled back at me, only now taking an exploratory swipe across his mouth with the back of his hand.

Anger immediately rose in me, good old manly indignation at being disrespected, but I watched Heero take several swaying steps backward across the bar floor and my anger ended up washing away and replacing itself with pity. Sympathy? Heero’s all-around pleasant attitude and saintly patience with others didn’t leave him with too many buddies in Preventers, but I liked to think I was one of the chosen few– or at least I knew him well enough to know that getting wasted at the old watering hole was not a pastime that Heero partook of very often. Or like, at all. So it made me feel pretty bad to watch Heero stagger around like this in an obviously drunken stupor. More sad than angry, at least.

“Heero, you don’t drink,” I said, though I’m loathe to prove myself a liar when the evidence to the contrary was standing– wobbling– in front of me.

To this, Heero shook his head, maybe with more force than he intended, and took a couple of steps forward, reaching one hand out to steady himself against the counter. He went to take a seat on one of the stools beside me, and I reached out a hand to steady him, afraid he might slide right off onto the floor.

“Where the fuck have you been?” He grumbled when he finally steadied himself on the stool. “I’ve been here a goddamn hour and a half already.” He scowled at the countertop, his mouth a thin, pouty little line. Man, Heero was one hell of a mean drunk. I could practically feel his aura surrounding us, like a little black pissed-off cloud.

Damn me for half-believing Heero might start a brawl in the mood he was in, because I sure hate apologizing for shit I haven’t even done wrong. “I got out of work late today man, Une was riding my ass to finish my report...” Then I kind of trailed off, because I might’ve been halfway through my second gin and tonic but I still had the faculties to catch up on the conversation.

“Wait a minute, Heero, were you waiting here for me?”

He grunted, those dark eyebrows pitching together, all very caveman-like, and went to shake his head. The booze wasn’t having it, though, because he immediately ceased all movement and slid his eyes shut in that universal ‘oh fuck, the room is spinning’ kind of way. Poor guy, he looked so lost in it. It had to have been his first time getting really, truly sloshed. I was having a hard fucking time getting mad at him and staying that way.

But, spins or not, my question damn well deserved answering. Look, all previous comments aside, Heero and I are not really what you’d call friends. Acquaintances, maybe, and yeah, the guy did bust me out of an Oz prison one time, but any and all attempts at friendship I’d made in the years that followed had been met by staunch resistance, even disinterest. I mean, I respected the hell out of the guy, even if I thought he had some debilitating social issues to work out, but if he didn’t want to be my buddy, it wasn’t like I could force him. Somewhere along the way, I just stopped trying. The war was over, after all; I had my own sanity to worry about. It sounds selfish, but I didn’t have the energy to try endlessly to fix someone else’s problems along with my own, especially against their will. It just wasn’t possible.

Maybe Heero thought the alcohol was punishing him for lying or something, because he was a lot more cooperative the second time he answered me. “I was at a table in the back,” he muttered. “Is it supposed to feel like the room is turning upside down?”

I forged ahead, ignoring that last comment– after all, who am I to spoil the ending for him? “Why were you waiting for me, pal?” I asked, a little distrust slipping in at the end. In my experience, guys waiting for you to arrive somewhere usually meant trouble. Though, unless Heero turned into Drunken Master or something else I wasn’t aware of, I was pretty sure I could take him easily in his state.

Heero sighed. He cracked his eyes open just enough to fix them angrily on me. “I have a bone to pick with you,” he repeated.

What, did he learn that sentence on TV today or something? He was wearing it thin as it was. “Yeah? What can I help you with?”

He glared at me like he intended to respond, but all that came out was a groan and his eyes slid shut again. His head dipped dangerously like he was about to pass out right there on the counter. Quickly I reached out again and gripped him by the shoulder.

“Hey man, you wanna go outside? I think you need some fresh air.”

I got another groan, and I took it as a resounding ‘yes’. I closed my tab as quickly as I could and steered the two of us out of the smoky heat of the bar into the relative chill of the night air.

Outside, Heero immediately decided to take a seat on the sidewalk curb, dropping his head to hang over his lap. I just felt so bad for the guy that I decided to do something for him, completely ignoring the fact that he was apparently really mad at me for some as-yet undisclosed reason.

“Look, Heero, you’re in pretty bad condition,” I said, putting a hand on his hunched shoulder. “You wanna come back to my place to sober up?”

Another groan, some unintelligible slur of words spoken to the gutter. I hoped that Heero’s ability to make crazy maneuvers in his Gundam under a sickening number of G’s meant that he had a pretty high tolerance to nausea, but nevertheless I was worried as I hustled him into a cab and gave the driver my address. I just had the carpet cleaned, after all.

On the ride there, he seemed to gather his bearings a little. “Sorry,” he mumbled when he’d managed to open his eyes long enough to look at me. “I’m fucking this up.”

“Yeah, no problem,” I muttered, “you can kick my ass over whatever when you’re feeling better.”

“That’s not..” he began, but the presence of the driver seemed to shut him up, albeit with a glare he fixed on the back of the oblivious guy’s head.

The rest of the trip was silent, and it stayed that way until we were in my apartment. Heero sat heavily on the couch and I went right to the kitchen for some water to help clear his head a little. Chalk it up to my altruistic streak, I guess.

“Here you go,” I said, handing him the glass as I took a seat on the couch beside him. Heero grabbed it from me and took a long, grateful swig. He seemed a little better already. Uh, well, less bad, at least.

“Okay,” I started again, now that we had gotten the more important things taken care of. “What have I managed to piss you off over?”

He looked at me. “I’m not pissed off at you,” he replied thickly.

“Uh, well, you said you had a bone to pick with me, so I thought I’d annoyed you over something.”

“That’s just...” He frowned. “I just meant I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“That’s not what ‘having a bone to pick’ means.”

“Duo, shut up,” he snapped.

“Okay, fine, Heero, but you oughta at least know the correct–”

“ _Duo,_ ” he growled, glaring at me, and I shut up, though I did give a final dramatic sigh of indignation.

Now that he fully had my attention, he seemed at a loss of what to say, twirling his glass in his hands as he glared at it. Finally, he blinked a couple of times and came up with, “Do you know what day it is today?”

“Friday?” I said, because I thought maybe he wasn’t asking me rhetorically. Heero is a pretty literal guy, after all.

Well, I guessed wrong, because he frowned at me like I’d said something especially stupid, before he turned his attention back to his glass. Then, I watched as the expression on his face changed instantly, like a curtain falling, all the anger draining away and being replaced by a drooping of the mouth, a set of the brows that signified we’d moved past angry drunk and straight into melancholy drunk. How wonderful for both of us.

A really long time passed with neither of us saying a thing. Heero looked really far gone within his internal turmoil. Right before I was about to speak up just to try to break the silence, Heero beat me to it.

“Today is... today marks a whole year since the last time I received a call on my personal cell phone.”

I didn’t say a thing, though I kind of felt like I’d been kicked in the gut with the impact of that statement and the haunted look in Heero’s eyes.

“You probably don’t remember,” he continued, voice low and soft, “but it was when you invited me over to watch a baseball game. I declined.”

Aw, shit, I vaguely remembered that. It _had_ been a long time ago. That was the final straw that had made me give up trying altogether? That was the _last_ time anyone had called him?

What the fuck could I even say to that? For the life of me, I didn’t know. And I felt so goddamn bad for Heero that it damn near felt like physical pain. Man, how the _fuck_ had he been this last year? How I had my head so far up my own ass that I hadn’t noticed that no one had come along to pick up the slack once I’d given up?

“I... I know I’m not a very easy person to talk to,” he said at length. “I wasn’t surprised when you stopped trying to approach me. I’d more or less tried to get you to leave me alone. I wasn’t interested in getting close to any of my coworkers, not that I would have had any idea how to, anyway...” He was staring at his glass so hard I thought it would shatter telekinetically. “I thought I didn’t have the need, or ability, to make friends. I just...”

“Heero...” I breathed unwittingly. This was the most I’d ever heard out of the guy in one sitting. You could have knocked me over with a feather.

“Duo, I just...” He sighed and screwed his eyes shut. “I just... I realized after you stopped trying to talk to me... that I was so goddamn lonely without you.”

“What?” I blurted.

“I... dammit, this was supposed to come out better. I didn’t mean to get so fucking drunk,” he muttered, rubbing his face heavily with his hands.

“Heero, you’re saying you want to make more friends...?” I was trying to make sense out of what seemed to be a ridiculously important statement. So maybe I was clutching at straws a little. Sue me.

He turned to me then, skewering me with his gaze, with those deep blue eyes. “I don’t need that,” he said succinctly. “I don’t need anything, anyone... just you.”

And then he did something I truly never, ever expected Heero Yuy to do. In fact, it wasn’t until I felt the timid slide of lips against mine that I realized that Heero had leaned right over and kissed me.

Heero’s kiss was as drunk as he was, slow, languorous, inexperienced. His wet lips pressed to mine with determination, searching them for some kind of response. I swear I could feel my heart climb to my throat and make my breathing hitch. I swallowed it back down and gently pushed Heero away as far as he was willing to let me, and that was barely.

“Heero, wait a sec–”

“Duo, let me, please,” he was mumbling, tilting his head again towards my mouth, his breath hot and close. “I just... I need to...”

Fuck, fuck, fuck, this was going to be bad in the morning. This was going to be bad when Heero had control over himself again. Hell, this was going to be bad when _I_ had control over myself again– but I couldn’t think over the rushing of blood through my ears. Everything was pounding confusion and hot breath.

With all the fatalism that I am so great at, I closed my eyes and relaxed and let Heero press his lips once again to mine.

His empty glass tumbled from his hands to the floor and he pushed me, bodily, onto my back on the couch. He attacked my mouth with all the gusto his relaxed inhibitions afforded him, plunging his tongue inside to clash with mine. In his kiss I tasted something much stronger than beer, and behind that the taste of Heero, sweet and dangerous, and that was when I knew I was truly lost.

I couldn’t believe how surreal this was, even as I pulled Heero against me and tried to suck his tongue right out of his head. I mean, this was the guy so perfect, so controlled, I thought he had no weaknesses– I really idolized him way back in the day. More than respect, it bordered on hero worship.

Now, I had to wonder: had all that really been just hero worship? Could hero worship alone make my heart pound hard enough to nearly break my ribs? Could it make my head spin with every burning kiss Heero gave? I don’t have the best track record when it comes to being honest with myself, but even I couldn’t deny that this went far past hero worship, far past sympathy, and into something that must have been buried deep inside me for a long, long time.

It was only when I felt Heero’s hand snake inside my waistband that I tried to break away; I wasn’t out of my mind enough not to realize going any further in the state he was in was a Bad Idea. Heero wasn’t having any of it, though. His free hand pressed hard against my chest, keeping me pinned against the couch as he kissed me forcefully, slipping his hand further inside.

“Heero... maybe this isn’t... such a great... idea...” I whispered when I had the opportunity.

“Let me,” he slurred against my mouth, grinding his erection lazily against my leg. “Please... Duo... let me...”

I really wish I could tell you that I did the right thing and stopped it right there, but you’ll have to forgive me for being a mere mortal sinner. I just couldn’t say no. I had the decency to feel guilty about it, at least, but all the same, I let Heero unbutton my pants and slip my cock out of my boxers.

He ran his palm up and down its length, wrapping his fingers around the shaft and squeezing. I ran my hands up over my eyes, tugging at my bangs, my mind reeling. Heero leaned up and away from me and I only realized where he’d gone when I felt his hot, heavy breath against the aching head of my erection. _Shit_.

“Duo,” he breathed, and then he slipped his mouth around my cock and slid his lips all the way down to my fucking balls. _Shiiiit_.

I was gone, I was lost; there wasn’t a single rational thought left in my head. Everything was Heero’s mouth and lips and tongue. His dark head bobbed up and down, his strokes determined and unexpectedly effective. Attention playfully wandering, his tongue was at times lazy and teasing, stroking languid circles around the rim of the head, then all at once becoming firm and tormenting as it stabbed mercilessly into the slit. He pressed sloppy, wet kisses down the shaft, nibbling gently at the base until I was just about squirming beneath him. My balls drew up, high and tight, my heart thundering in my chest. Heero took my cock in his mouth and pumped it rhythmically, all wet friction and searing slick heat. A moan reverberated around my cock and that was all it took. My orgasm surprised even me, and the warning I had intended for Heero got lost in a helpless groan instead. Heero wasn’t ready and I vaguely registered that I succeeded in making a mess everywhere– on him, on me, and unfortunately, probably on the couch too.

Heero rose up over me again, his dark eyes boring into me. I was nearly afraid of what he would ask for next– I knew I wouldn’t be able to say no to anything he wanted, to hell with the consequences. He pressed his lips heavily against mine, then pulled away and even in the relative darkness of the living room I could see him smile.

“Duo,” he whispered, laying his head against mine, nuzzling into my neck.

I wrapped my arms around him, molding against his body as my breathing steadied back to normal. I remained that way for a long time, content to hold him to me, regardless of all the questions that still lay between us. Heero’s breathing was slow and even in my ear, his body utterly relaxed.

Actually, make that a little _too_ relaxed.

I nudged him gently with my shoulder. “Heero?”

But the alcohol had finally caught up with him. Heero was completely unconscious on top of me.

I didn’t know whether I should laugh or cry or thank some benevolent god for keeping me from making even more bad decisions than I had already. Gently as I could, I slipped out from under Heero, settling him back against the couch before I stalked quietly into my bedroom. I cleaned myself up a little before I pulled something on to sleep in and went to bed. It was a lucky thing that I’d had something to drink myself, because I’m sure the thoughts swirling through my head would have kept me awake far longer otherwise.

***

It was the smell of coffee that woke me the next morning, whenever the hell it was that I finally got up. It meant, I realized with a jolt, that Heero was still in my apartment, and apparently conscious enough to blunder around my kitchen.

I gave myself a couple of minutes alone in my bedroom for a pep talk, because I honestly did not want to go out there and deal with whatever Heero was going to throw at me after the night we’d had. The day before, we hadn’t even been friends. Now, the guy could pick me out of a lineup with only his tongue to guide him. That tended to make for some pretty uncomfortable conversation.

I didn’t really know what I wanted to hear less. That it hadn’t been serious last night? That it _had_ been serious last night? Both of the options scared the shit out of me. It was with a good amount of trepidation that I pulled on some clothes and stepped out into the living room.

Heero was hunched over the kitchen counter, his clothes wrinkled, his hair a total mess, random pieces sticking up all over the place. He clutched a cup of coffee protectively in his hands, though when I walked in he was simply leaning above it, letting the steam drift over him, rather than drinking it.

“You brought me home last night from the bar,” he muttered. The guy has some great senses, because his eyes were closed and I didn’t think I made any noise.

“Uh, yeah,” I replied, though the fact of him standing in my kitchen alone was confirmation enough.

One hand came up to rub briefly at his temple before he turned his head toward me, cracking his eyes open to watch me approach. I took in the lines in his forehead, no doubt indicative of the spectacular headache he was nursing. There were big dark circles under his eyes, and the skin around his jaw was scruffy and in need of a shave. Basically, he looked like shit, completely appropriate for the level of inebriation he’d achieved last night.

“I made coffee, if you want some,” he said, the words sounding like he barely wanted to force them out. Whether this was the fault of the headache or because seeing me again after last night was making him miserable, I couldn’t tell.

Nevertheless, I pulled a mug of my own out of the clean dish rack and went to pour myself a cup. There were a couple of minutes of silence as we both pretended to be absorbed in drinking our coffee. I would’ve started the damn conversation myself, but I wasn’t really the one whose benefit it was for. All my decisions had been made last night when I’d let Heero kiss me in the first place. Whatever happened between us now, that was Heero’s call.

Finally, he cleared his throat, wincing a little as he did so. “I drank too much last night,” he began, stating the obvious. “I didn’t intend for you to have to take me home. I’m sorry you had to take care of me.”

“Uh, it’s fine,” I said quickly.

“No, it’s not,” he replied, staring at his coffee. “Listen, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

Unwillingly, a lump rose in my throat. I hastily swallowed and waited, tensely for him to continue.

“Last night was... it was the first... shit, this is embarrassing,” he said, pausing to run his hands through his unruly hair. I thought I might die from the time it was taking him to get through this.

He evidently came to some conclusion, because he straightened and turned fully to me. “No, you deserve to know this. Last night was the date of the last time in a year anyone called me on my phone. That person was you, Duo.”

Uh... wait a minute. We were having flashbacks here. I looked at him, confused. While the statement didn’t carry that punch-in-the-gut feeling for me like it had when I’d first heard it, I’ll be damned if Heero didn’t look like it was just as painful for him to admit the second time around.

“You might not remember,” he continued, voice low and soft and very familiar, “but you invited me over to watch a baseball game... I declined.”

Can you say ‘deja vu’? Heero, for the life of him, looked like this was all coming out of him for the first time, the way he was glaring at his coffee cup and clutching it tightly in his hands. Gears turned in the back of my head... something was up...

I suddenly realized that, with the amount Heero’d had to drink last night, it was quite possible for him to have forgotten we’d had this conversation entirely. In fact, it was more than likely that, since he apparently was surprised to have woken up in my apartment, he’d forgotten everything that had happened last night past the point when he’d confronted me in the bar. Maybe he’d even forgotten that, too.

Relief flooded me, as pathetic as that is. I must’ve had some good karma saved up or something, because my guardian angel sure was pulling my ass out of a lot of tight situations lately. All the tension in my body just melted away, replaced by a goofy grin and I turned to face Heero, just about ready to kiss him for getting so goddamn wasted and saving us both a world of embarrassment.

My goofy grin vanished just as quickly as it came, though, when I saw all that raw emotion in Heero’s eyes, as he struggled to admit how he’d been feeling for the last year. I mean, I might have heard it all before, but this was the first time all over again for the guy. Sympathy, that little asshole, once again welled up inside me, bolstered by a whole new set of emotions that probably had a lot to do with our impromptu slide into third base last night.

“I know I pushed you away, Duo,” he muttered, shoulders hunched, “I didn’t think I needed friends, or maybe I was just afraid that I didn’t know how to relate to other people, I don’t know... I just... I wanted to know if it wasn’t too late, if there was a chance...”

Oh, fuck this. There was no way I was going to let him sit there and make himself miserable a second time. Those new emotions kicked me in the ass and sent me flying, and before I knew it I had grabbed Heero and pulled him to me in a tight, full-body hug.

“Hey, buddy,” I mumbled, afraid my voice might crack or something equally embarrassing. “You know I’ll always be here for you.”

For a moment, he didn’t respond, and it was just me in a deathlock around his shoulders. Then, strong arms came up and circled my waist, squeezing me painfully tightly, his body leaning heavily into mine. “Thank you, Duo,” he whispered thickly against my shoulder.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him this wasn’t exactly appropriate for a ‘friends’ hug– judging by the crushing force of his arms around me, he was getting something out of it, anyway. And fuck it, I was enjoying myself, close against his warm, broad body. My heart beat like crazy, and I thought briefly that this might be harder to pull off than I thought. After all, a year ago, I really had only wanted friendship with the guy, but now... God, now just having him hold me like this was making me think that I was going to have to be careful not to do something to fuck up the newfound friendship we were creating.

It was a long time before he pulled away, with a self-conscious glance at his own disheveled appearance. “I should probably go and change my clothes,” he muttered, a tiny smirk in one corner of his mouth. “And I could really use a shower.”

I wasn’t exactly overjoyed to see him go, but all the same I shrugged and said, “yeah, probably.”

He left the kitchen, running his hands briefly over his shirt in an attempt to straighten it out. Halfway to the door, he turned back to me, his expression vaguely hopeful. “If I... if I give you a call tonight, will you be free?”

“Sure,” I said without hesitation. First time Heero had ever offered to make the phone call himself. I wondered if maybe he would mark this momentous occasion down somewhere, too.

At my response, he broke out in a wide, incredible smile, like the one he’d given me last night when we’d... well, best not to think about that right now. “I’ll see you later, then,” he said, making his way to the door.

“Oh, and Duo?” He paused with his hand on the doorknob and turned back to me.

“Hm?”

“You might, uh, want to see about getting that couch cleaned,” he said, his smile remaining but the expression in his eyes changing to something darkly suggestive and more than a little proud of himself. Then, he was out the door, leaving me stock-still in my living room.

I have to say, it took a lot of effort not to run out after him and drag him right the hell back inside, the hell with a shower and clean clothes. Clothes could be dealt with after we’d removed them, and a shower could certainly be dealt with after we’d made ourselves dirty enough to deserve one. I stopped myself, though, because Heero certainly deserved a little time to himself to straighten this all out with a sober conscience– though that look he’d given me before he left certainly suggested he’d decided a few things already. Besides, I always had that call coming later to look forward to. And possibly the events of the upcoming evening. And maybe even waking up the next morning to– okay, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, here.

As I turned back to the kitchen to take care of our abandoned coffee cups, I thought about the day before, and just how much significance the date had carried for Heero, the one-year anniversary of loneliness that had finally spurred him into reaching out for someone else in a way he’d been afraid to do for so long.

I decided right then that by the time we arrived at that date next year, it would mark the anniversary of something very different in both of our lives. And, if I had my way, of something a lot more than just friendship. No matter what happened, though, I fully intended to make it my personal mission that, as long as we had each other to count on, we wouldn’t have to worry about being lonely again.

And, while we were on the subject of personal missions, I wouldn’t mind getting the couch dirty a few hundred more times, either.


End file.
